Boil and Bubble: A Tale of Two Witches
by The Bog Witch
Summary: Everything is going fine for Eudial, that is, until a certain target slips off to California. To make matters worse, Mimete decides to tag along. Two angry witches must resist evangelists, salesmen, senshi, and the overpowering urge to kill each other.
1. Plane Pain

Disclaimer: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi et al. This is a non-profit endeavor, done purely for the joy of doing it.

Title inspired by Shakespeare's _Macbeth_/ Dickenson's _A Tale of Two Cities_. I don't own those either.

Update 2/16/08: Edits made to correct the author's poor grasp of basic geography.

**Boil and Bubble: A Tale of Two Witches**

Chapter the First: Plane Pain –_ in which everything starts to go wrong and the lives of two witches are taken to new heights. Also, the author makes a bad, poorly fitting pun _and _breaks down the fourth wall with a sledgehammer, all in the space of one little italicized tag. _

Today was not Eudial's day.

Of course, it was almost never Eudial's day, of late, what with the senshi thwarting her every move. But this target had seemed so … promising. She was _sure _he had a talisman. And, then the lazy slob sped off to California, before she even got the chance to find out for sure!

At first, it had not seemed such a bad thing. At least the senshi wouldn't show up in California, and she'd get a nice semi-vacation, courtesy of Dr. Tomoe's wallet. Still, Eudial was not one to play before the work was done.

Things were looking up for her. What goes up must come down, however, and

Eudial's good mood had crashed to earth like a fifty million dollar space probe, that is, hard and due to the general stupidity of those around her.

It was all _that girl's _fault.

"Oh, steward!" shrilled the girl in question, sitting beside Eudial, "When are we taking off?" She batted her eyelashes. Eudial's fingers curled on the shared armrest.

"In a few minutes, Miss," he said, leaning over slightly. Bad idea, Eudial knew. It was best not to encourage her.

Mimete sighed. "You must get to go all around the world and see all sorts of places! New York, Venice… and Paris, of course. The city of love." She stared at him pointedly. "Have you ever been?"

"Um, yes, well…"

Eudial felt like knocking herself out on the tray table and spending the remainder of the ride in blissful oblivion already.

"You can call me Mimi." The orange haired girl clasped the steward's hand. _And his only crime was being pretty!_ thought Eudial. She wondered when the drink cart would come around.

"I have to get going…"

"Oh, why not stay?" Mimete breathed.

Sooner than later, if she was lucky.

"Erm." The steward looked uncomfortable.

For the record, Eudial didn't believe in luck.

"Passengers! Please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray tables up and your seats back in the full upright position! Today's ten o-clock flight from Tokyo to New York will be taking off shortly." A smiling stewardess stood in the center of the plane. "Please remain seated as we go over the location of the emergency exits and the safety procedures."

"Oops," said the steward, wresting his hand from Mimete's grip, "I guess I have to go help out." His eyes shone with barely suppressed relief. Mimete practically growled as he helped the stewardess demonstrate the proper way to put on the oxygen mask.

"Why that little—" she seethed.

"Not a word until we get off the plane," Eudial sighed. The last thing they needed was a cat fight in midair.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"You didn't have to come, you know."

"But it's _Gustav Valcignione_!" Mimete gave a starry eyed little sigh at the thought of their target's rippling muscles and thick, luxurious hair, "And you'd just mess it up, like you did with all the others!"

Where was that drink cart?

It was not that she didn't like Mimete. Oh no, it went deeper than that; she outright _despised_ her. Put it this way: If a giant flaming meteor were to crash into the planet, Eudial could die happy as long as she was secure in the knowledge that it would kill Mimete first. Everything about the orange witch drove Eudial up the wall. She had assumed, over the years, that the feeling was mutual.

They had never gotten along, Eudial knew. First, there was the girl's screechy, nails-on-a chalkboard voice. Oh heavens, the _voice_! It made Eudial want to cram a pen up her own nose, just to distract herself from the aural pain.

Mimete's personality, too, left much to be desired. She was a ditzy, dizzy, _lazy _airhead, the polar opposite to Eudial's hardworking practicality. And, on top of it all, she was vicious, too. Eudial had experienced the orange witch's vindictive side first hand.

She remembered the time when Mimete managed to 'accidentally' let loose an entire swarm of lab rats in her office. And then, there was the time that she 'accidentally' let loose an entire swarm of ants in Eudial's office. And the time (also, incidentally, 'accidental') that Mimete let loose an entire swarm of snails in her office …

There was an uncomfortable pattern here.

In short, Mimete was the last person that Eudial would want to spend eleven and a half hours on a plane with. And that wasn't even counting the transit flight between New York and California.

Tomoe, the cheap bastard, had sent them on all the way to New York instead of straight to California because he'd found a 'super-cost-effective' package deal. What he failed to take into account was that the extra time in the air could very well mean the end of one or both of his employees. (Then again, perhaps he did take this into account. The man _was _pure evil, after all.)

The first three hours were mostly uneventful. They showed an in-flight movie, something about a man who was really a dog that was really a leopard trapped in the body of a toaster, or some such nonsense. Mimete spent her time flirting with the steward, who evaded her aggravating advances with admirable aplomb.

The drink cart had yet to make an appearance.

Eudial, for her part, decided to take a nap. (Not the easiest feat to manage with only the pathetic two or three square feet of seat space.) Eudial figured it might be better if she put her chair back.

Ha-ha.

The chair gave an undignified squeak and jerked back maybe a quarter of an inch. Lovely.

Grumbling, Eudial decided to make the best of the situation. After all, how often did she get the opportunity to see how well a person could manage sleeping at a ninety degree angle?

She rested her head on her cheek and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she felt the back of her seat jolt. She turned her head, resolving to ignore it. After the action had been repeated twice more, though, it became apparent that Something Had to be Done ™.

Eudial was quite good at Getting Something Done. In fact, when Something needed to be Done at work, Eudial was often the first one called to do it. She had perfected the art. It was a matter she prided herself on. Sometimes, all Eudial needed to do was glare at Something, and it would whimper, then skulk off and Do itself.

This in mind, Eudial peered around the headrest of her chair. The culprit, as it turned out, was an extremely freckled boy, about ten or eleven years old.

Eudial glared.

The child had the audacity to laugh! Laugh! At her! Of course, it seemed to Eudial that she had once again been called upon to Do Something, and, ordinarily she would have. Except … with the flight and _that girl_ and everything, Eudial didn't feel entirely up to Doing Something.

_Let Something Do itself, this time, _she thought, and rolled over. She could sleep easier now that she wasn't facing Mimete (who, by the way, had commandeered the window seat immediately upon entering the plane.)

Unfortunately for Eudial, the child took her non-action as a sign of friendship.

"Hey, lady!" he yelled, kicking her seat. When no response was forthcoming, he yelled louder, "Hey, laaaddddyyyy! Hey!"

"What?" hissed Eudial. The word dripped with poison. A lesser man might have crumbled. Not so for Timmy Walker, full-time resident of Nebraska. His spiteful father had given him three cans of SuperSugah soda pop and had helped him smuggle at least four pounds of candy in his jacket before sending him back to his mother in the USA. (That'd teach her. Full-time custody his red behind.)

"Whatcha doin'? Huh? Huh? Whatcha doin', lady?" Timmy bounced, reveling in sugar high euphoria.

"Ignoring you," said Eudial, through gritted teeth. And she did.

Then the kicking began again. Eudial whipped her head around and glared. The boy looked up at her sheepishly, actually stopping for a few minutes. Of course, this respite was short lived.

Eudial grimaced as she felt the back of her seat jolt. She considered asking Mimete to switch chairs with her. The idea was abandoned, however, when Eudial realized that it would require actually _talking_ to the orange witch. Ug.

Thus, she continued to rely of the power of the glare.

This basically set the tone for the rest of the ride. Shortened version: Kick glare, kick kick, glare kick glare flirt flirt flirt, kick kick kick glare kick, blessed interlude with the drink cart, kick kick kick, glare glare glare. Repeat for about eight or nine hours.

Around this time, Eudial was considering destroying the child. The scene it would undoubtedly create would be worth it. However, her homicidal urges were soon deterred by a force bigger than any one person.

Well, so to speak. Geno FitzGerald was twice as big as one person, due to a glandular problem that he refused to have treated. 'At my age,' he'd say, 'it's no use going to those doctors. They'd only be repairing a washing machine with an expired warranty.' Geno was twenty seven. Also, he was not very good with metaphors.

"Please fasten your seatbelts," he said, over the loudspeaker, "and put your tray tables up and your seats back in the full upright position as we will now be landing in New York." Hey, it was a gig.

The plane hit a little bit of turbulence on the way down and the pest behind Eudial bumped into his obnoxiously non-upright tray table.

Justice, Eudial deemed, had been served. At least, for that irritation anyway. Now, if only she could do something about Mimete…


	2. Bag Drag

A/N: Well, it took a little bit, but I'm quite satisfied with this chapter.

Chapter the Second: Bag Drag – _In which two witches are subjected to the unyielding torture of luggage claim and the author dances sadistically on the broken plaster-ish rubble that was once the fourth wall._

Airports, Mimete realized, were not the sort of place to pick up dates. In fact, as they went through customs, Mimete realized that airports were not the sort of place to smile, laugh or have fun of any sort. If one of the security guards even thought that you were _thinking _of having fun, you would be dragged to the nearest police station and flogged mercilessly.

It didn't help that she was here with the Snail Lady, perhaps _the_ most boring person on the planet. The girl must hold some sort of record in dullness, honestly. Mimete had never known someone so completely against having a good time. And it irked her.

Admittedly, Mimete was not in her happy place just about now, either.

"Look," hissed Eudial, "we just want to know where our bags went."

The washed-out blonde behind the counter gave her a vapid stare.

"Bags? Did you, like, check over there?" She nodded to a crowded area, where confused travelers attempted to identify their bags and remove them from the conveyor belt. (Because a giant grocery-story facsimile is the best that modern technology can do to return luggage to weary vacationers.)

"Yes." Eudial bared her teeth. "We. Already. Looked. There. Why would I be here talking to you if I hadn't?"

"Uh…" The blonde popped her gum. A vein in Eudial's head pulsed dangerously.

Mimete sighed. _This might take a while._

It did. Twenty minutes later, their bags were still missing in action.

The Snail Lady gritted her teeth. _Of course_, Mimete thought. _Uncouth and unattractive, how very like her._

"We'll have to go on without them," she barked, in Mimete's general direction.

"We can't! All my important things were in those bags!" Mimete went cold at the thought of it. She'd spent hours packing. Hours and hours out of her valuable and glamorous life, down the toilet!

"What important things could _you_ have?"

"Only my limited edition violet-blue GoGo Girl easy glide eye shadow, and my magazines and pictures of … Gustav Valcignione, oh!" The Snail Lady just didn't have the mental capacity to comprehend such matters, poor slug. Gustav was just about the dreamiest male model/actor/singer/songwriter she'd ever seen. And Mimete had seen a lot of male model/actor/singer/songwriters. Granted, not all in the same package, like Gustav, but that only made him even dreamier, in Mimete's book, (which, to be fair, had rather more glossy photographs and hair-care tips than your average book. From time to time, it was even known to have a perfume sample tucked in the middle.)

The unenlightened Snail Lady snorted. "We're going to miss our transit flight. We'll have to go without the bags."

"What? Never! We can't go without the bags!"

"Listen, your eye shadow is not important enough to jeopardize our mission—"

"Of course it is! I can't meet Gustav Valcignione without it! But, even if limited edition violet-blue GoGo Girl easy glide eye shadow just fell off the trees, we still won't be able to leave without those bags!"

"Why, got a six-billion yen nail file stashed in there?" Eudial sneered.

"For your information, it was only twenty thousand yen, and that was a bargain! But, we have to find them because ourboardingpasseswereinthosebags!" Mimete flushed deeply. _Now look what she's done! She's ruined my perfect complexion! _Mimete seethed.

"What did you say?" The look on Eudial's face went past murderous and burned a smoldering five-foot hole though the other side.

"I _said_ our boarding passes were in those bags!" Mimete crossed her arms, refusing to meet the other's glare.

"Excuse me?" The Snail Lady's cheeks and forehead were now turning a completely unsightly shade of purple. (Though Mimete would never admit it, the color actually bore quite some resemblance to her limited edition violet-blue GoGo Girl easy glide eye shadow.)

"Um, I stowed them in my bag so _you_ wouldn't lose them and…"

"How could you be so irresponsible? What are we going to do now?"

"What am _I_ supposed to do about it?" When someone is angry at you for doing something stupid, Mimete found that it helped a lot to get angry at them for getting angry at you for doing something stupid rather than doing something stupid like apologizing. Apologizing was only for the guilty, and you weren't guilty. After all, it wasn't your _fault _and you were only _trying_ to help and you could _never _in a million years have predicted that the idiotic airline was going to lose your bags. In fact, in Mimete's eyes, the person who was angry at you for doing something stupid was actually _more _in the wrong than you were for doing something stupid in the first place. It wasn't like that person (who, by the way, was oh-so-much less attractive and clever and interesting than you were and was probably jealous about it to boot) hadn't known you for years. It wasn't like that person, that red-headed person (and Mimete would not name names, no. She wasn't petty, like that person) couldn't have taken some initiative for once and put the passes in her own stylistically inferior pocket. No!

It was all _that person's_ fault.

"You tell me!" Mimete shouted, balling her fists.

"Attention travelers!" A pleasant voice came over the intercom, "Flight 147B from New York to Las Angeles will be leaving in ten minutes. All last minute boarders, please report to terminal 14C immediately. Have a nice flight."

"What was that?" said Mimete, whose English was a little rusty. She didn't have all that _free time_ in high-school to spend studying like _that person_, after all. _Some _people actually had dates.

The person in question blew her decidedly stringy hair out of her eyes. "It means we're late. Come on, then. I'll go talk to the officials at the terminal and see if I can't fix _your_ mistake."

Mimete grumbled at this obvious misdistribution of blame, but followed.

"Can't you look up our tickets in the computer or something?" Eudial asked.

"Oh, sure," said the official. "Hold on." It turned out that he was a one-fingered typer. "Sorry," he said, looking sheepish, "It's my first day on the job."

"How special," Eudial scoffed.

"Oh, yes, it is really," said the man, oblivious to Eudial's sarcasm. "I thought they'd never let me out of the facility, not after …well, there was this incident at the shopping mall a few years back, let's just say I sort of—"

"Can you work any faster?" Mimete tapped the counter. She'd barely understood a word the man said, but talking was always her strong point. (Plus, that particular phrase always came in handy, no matter what language you were speaking.)

"Wait just a sec…Okay, the page is loading!"

"Hey, what are you doing?" Eudial whipped around as a woman by the gate began closing the doors.

"Still loading!" said the official, ever-cheerful.

"Sorry, Ma'am, the plane is about to take off. We can't allow any more passengers to board at this time."

"What! But we paid to get on this plane! Can't you hold it just a minute?"

"Still loading!"

"I'm sorry. It's airline policy. They're already going down the runway." The woman shrugged.

"Almost there!" The official waved his arms in excitement. He gave Mimete a thumbs up.

Eudial growled.

"Okay!" The official grinned, pulling two pieces of paper from a slot on the computer. "Here are your new boarding passes. Enjoy your flight!"

"It's already left!"

"Oh, bread-baskets with gooseberry jam! That's a shame. Do you want to book another flight?"

For a split-second, it seemed as though Eudial was about to strangle him. (For once, Mimete wouldn't have blamed her.) However, she clenched and unclenched her fists and began taking deep calming breaths. Those Tomoe-ordered anger management classes must've really taken effect, Mimete realized.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts," Eudial muttered, eyes winched shut. After several minutes, she opened her eyes, bared her teeth in what may have been meant to be a smile, but somewhere along the way had metamorphosed into a painful grimace, and addressed the official.

"Yes, we probably will need to book a new flight. First, we'll have to get in contact with our employer, though. He's paying." Eudial stomped away from the counter.

Eudial whipped out a cell phone. "_You_ call him. It was your stupidity that got us into this."

"My stupidity!" Mimete drew herself up to her full height, but then remembered that Eudial would be several inches taller than her anyway.

"Just do it. Or, do you want to stand here in this airport for the rest of our lives?"

"With you? Never!" Furiously, Mimete began to dial.


	3. Eudial at the Wheel

A/N: WARNING: Some minor swearing in this chapter. Read at your own risk. Author not responsible for loss of childlike innocence, righteous anger, limb mutations, or the Cold War.

Chapter the Third: Eudial at the Wheel—_In which two witches drive each other crazy and the author makes yet another bad pun, all the while glaring menacingly at the little known third wall._

"Erm, hello?" said Mimete, wondering how she was going to explain this.

"What is it?" snapped the good doctor, "Aren't you supposed to be on the plane by now? Cell phone calls are discouraged on airplanes, you know."

"Well, actually, no." Mimete twisted a lock of hair around her finger, "We're not on the plane. The thing is…the thing is _Eudial_ lost track of the boarding passes."

"What!" yelped Eudial, trying to wrestle the phone away from her orange compatriot, "There's no way you're pinning this on me!"

"Let go!" shrieked Mimete.

"Dr. Tomoe," Eudial yelled into the receiver in Mimete's hand, "Don't listen to her! _She's_ the one that –

Mimete cut Eudial off by wrenching the phone away from her. She held it high above her head as Eudial's hands slapped at her sides, reaching for it.

Around them, travelers began to stare. A mother walked out of the restroom with her small child, took one look at the disgruntled pair, and promptly ushered the child back into the safety of the stall.

"What was that?" came Tomoe's voice.

"Nothing, nothing at all!" squealed Mimete. "Just a little …(arg get off get off you idiot)… static!" She kicked Eudial square in the stomach.

"I am very busy. What is it that you need?"

"We need to book another flight. Ours already left because of _Eudial's_ stupidity. I tried to stop her, Dr. Tomoe, I really did! She just wouldn't listen to me!" Caught up in her performance, Mimete draped one hand dramatically across her forehead, tearing up. Big mistake.

As soon as Mimete's hand was otherwise occupied, Eudial saw that she had an ideal opening to dispatch of the other witch. She tackled the treacherous, lying creature to the ground and dove for the cell phone.

"Mimete," Eudial said, panting heavily into the receiver, "is lying, doctor."

"Is there a point to all this or are you two bent on wasting my time even when you're thousands of miles away?"

"We missed the plane. Because of Mimete," Eudial said. (Mimete, of course, screamed her protests in the background.) "We need to book a new flight," Eudial soldiered on.

"I see," said Tomoe. "However, I'm not paying the expensive fees to fly you two idiots out to California twice."

"You can't mean…" Eudial trailed off in horror, aghast at the possibility of actually having to _pay for her own flight_. For a work-related trip. Mimete would die. No, wait—Mimete would die, Eudial would find some way of bringing her back to life, and then she would kill her _again_. Violently. Preferably, it would involve snakes. Big venomous ill-tempered snakes.

"Yes," said Tomoe, with what Eudial felt was far too much pleasure, "I'm not paying for your plane tickets. I'm booking you a rental car instead. You pay for gas."

"What!" That was even worse than paying for her own flight! "You can't do that!"

"Of course I can. Some togetherness will do you good—promote team spirit. Enjoy." The phone clicked and the dial tone droned on into Eudial's ear.

Tomoe would die.

Eudial was going to _kill him with fire_.

"Well, did Tomoe fix the error caused by _your_ stupidity yet, Snail Lady?" Mimete snapped.

Right after she found some snakes for Mimete, that is. Eudial didn't know much about snakes, but she wondered if there were any that could both squeeze their victims to death and inject large quantities of slow-acting poison at the same time. Whether such a reptile existed or not, she thought that anything with the words 'hissing' 'fiery' or 'painful writhing demise' in its name would do nicely.

With this pleasant thought in mind, Eudial stomped off to wait for the car.

* * *

As anyone who's tried to book a rental car on short notice knows, you don't get the pick of the litter. (Hell, sometimes you can't manage to get something halfway drivable if you book it months in advance.) However, the car that the attendant tossed Eudial the keys to actually didn't look that bad.

It was a somewhat faded shade of brown, not exactly what one would call attractive, but tolerable. The windshield appeared to be intact and relatively dead bug free. There were no visible bullet holes.

When they had picked up the keys, there had even been talk of air-conditioning.

There had also been talk of a working radio. (Eudial, however, knew that this was a lie. The gods had never been that good to her and they wouldn't suddenly start now.)

"Well," said the attendant, "everything seems to be set up here. Now, your employer has already paid for two weeks of rental. There will be a small fee charged for every day that the car is late."

"Fee? What sort of fee?"

The attendant told her.

Eudial gasped at the figure. It cost more than an arm and a leg; they wanted her soul too. _I'll get you for this, Tomoe! And your little Kaoli, too. _Eudial could perhaps be forgiven for this uncharacteristically witchy thought (and the author can perhaps be forgiven for this totally characteristic pun and subsequent fourth wall breach) because, at that point she realized that Tomoe was just plain evil.

Well, okay, Eudial may have had an inkling of this before but the cheap bastard had only paid for a measly two weeks? Two weeks to drive across this giant stinking dirt clod of a country, apprehend their target, and drive back? The man had to be out of his mind.

Or, still more disturbing, he had to be bent on forcing Eudial to _pay for her own transportation in some form_. The mere idea of it made Eudial want very badly to cause lasting physical harm to someone in her vicinity, preferably Mimete. But sadly, this particular course of action had been heavily discouraged by the Tomoe-ordered anger management instructors. (Which Eudial also had to partially pay for! Why hadn't she destroyed Tomoe earlier? She thought a moment and supposed that there was always the matter of her salary. That could've been it.)

While Eudial seethed, the attendant had wandered away, apparently assuming that the transaction was over.

"Are we going or what?" Mimete snapped, arms crossed.

Eudial grunted in response and slid the key into the car door. "You'll be riding in the trunk if you don't watch your mouth," she said. Suddenly a beautiful idea snapped into Eudial's brain like an overstretched rubber band or an overextended postal worker who comes in to work one day and does horrible things to his co-workers. Eudial smirked at Mimete as the orange-haired witch made her way to the passenger seat.

"And by the way," she called, swinging into the driver's seat, "You're paying for gas."

"What?" Mimete sputtered, but all protests died in her throat as she made contact with the seat. "Arg! What in the name of Gustav Valcignione is that smell?"

Eudial felt her olfactory senses staging a full scale revolt complete with guillotines while her nostrils attempted to recede into her nasal cavity.

"Ah—damn!" She pushed open the door full force. It swung on its hinges, almost banging into the side of the car.

And thus Eudial and Mimete discovered the reason that they were able to acquire this car on such short notice.

Something, or perhaps several somethings, had clearly died in there. And it/they had not been well at the time, make no mistake.

Gasping for air, Eudial and Mimete leapt from the car in tandem and ran back into the airport.

* * *

"This is unacceptable!" Eudial growled, banging her fist on the rental car company's customer service desk.

"I'm sorry ma'am but it's the only one we have available." The attendant fiddled with his standard issue tie, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"I want to talk to your manager!" Eudial pounded her fist again, this time with more emphasis.

The manager, a portly older man, scurried out from the office and listened to Eudial's tale of woe (delivered in the form of an angry spit-flying rant that was nonetheless filled with woe.)

Soon enough, Eudial had managed to squeeze an extra week out of the company for free. The portly manager also provided them with free air-fresheners from the airport gift shop. They were shaped like pine trees, but smelled a bit like wintergreen mints.

All this just went to prove what Eudial and Mimete both thought of as their personal philosophy (although they would each be shocked to learn that the other subscribed to it as well): if you yell and complain a lot, you generally get what you want.

* * *

On their way back to the car, a strange man flagged them down.

"Hey there you guys are! I've been looking all over for you!" he said. He was carrying two familiar bags. This would have been very creepy if Eudial had failed to recognize him as the official who had failed to find their boarding registrations in time for them to catch their flight. (The fact that the plane had already been taking off the runway less than two minutes after they came up to him was irrelevant, in Eudial's mind. His sorry face was still permanently imprinted on her ever-growing 'People Who Have Pissed Me Off and Will Not Survive the Transition to the New World Order Should I Become Dictator' list.)

"Guess what?" he said, bobbing up and down with barely contained joy. "We found your bags! They were accidentally put in the hold of a cargo flight, isn't that funny?"

Eudial's expression remained blank. It was about as funny as a root canal without the benefit of anesthetic.

"So, yeah, and I remembered about you guys leaving your bags and I just couldn't let you leave without them. Then they'd just sit around cluttering up the lost and found for a few weeks. The people at the facility told me that I have such a bad reaction to clutter—they think that's why I acted the way I did when I passed that melon display in the supermarket where that old woman was just moving all the melons around, taking them out of their perfect rows and I got so angry—" his face began to redden disturbingly.

Acting quickly, Eudial grabbed their bags, cutting him off. "Yes, that's all very interesting, but we have to go now…" Motioning to Mimete, she booked it to the car.

Quite often Eudial felt that she just wasn't paid enough to deal with all these lunatics.

Speaking of lunatics, Mimete tried uselessly to hang the mint-scented air fresheners over the rear-view mirror. They really weren't helping. The air fresheners only succeeded in mixing with the foul odor, so the car smelled like dead-vomit-covered cat with a hint of refreshing wintergreen mint mist.

The combination made Eudial feel sick, and feeling sick made Eudial angry. More angry than usual, anyway.

So it was completely understandable when she put the key in the ignition, started up the car … and floored it.

They were on their way now, and the faster they got there, the better.


	4. Deranged Exchange

See, I'm like some sort of virus. You think I'm gone and then I just keep coming back. Expect updates to other stories uh…pretty soon. Check my profile page for updates, if you're interested.

A/N the first: I've chosen to represent airplane seats with Arabic letters and numerals as we do in the US. I'm not entirely sure what they do in Japan, but I imagine that it involves Japanese characters, which my computer (not to mention my brain) doesn't do. However, if anybody knows how they label airplane seats in Japan, feel free to drop me a line, and, if I can, I'll try to incorporate it.

A/N the second: I went back and edited the first chapter of this story once I realized that the flight from Tokyo to CA would be shorter than the flight from Tokyo to NY. D'oh. (Geography plus Bog Witch equals fail. It's a mathematical certainty.) I slapped on an explanation, though, so everything should make sense now.

* * *

Chapter the Fourth: Deranged Exchange — _in which two witches don't actually appear_

"Please pay attention," said Ms. Haruna, tapping the board. "You all should look over your information packets with your parents or guardians before we go on the trip."

Minako yawned, covering her mouth with her hand, while Ami bent studiously over her notepad, scribbling notes in neat handwriting. Makoto sat up very straight and put her hands on her knees. The trip to London, England was part of the school's new cultural exchange program. It was too bad Usagi hadn't been able to get in, but her poor grades precluded her from participating.

Ami chewed her lip. Who knew what would happen if Eudial tried to attack during their absence? However, Usagi had assured her that she and Rei, who went to a different school, would take care of everything.

This did not exactly inspire confidence, but then, Usagi had never let them down before. Or at least (as long as you didn't count reading comic books during their senshi meetings) not when it actually mattered.

Usually.

Well, anyway, Rei would be there, Ami reasoned.

"Don't worry so much, Ami," Minako said, sensing her friend's discomfort. "You'll just love England…I'll show you around to all the coolest shops—"

"Aren't we supposed to stay with the school group, though?" Ami asked.

Minako waved her off. "School group, schmool group! You have to live a little. Take a walk on the wild side once in a while!"

Ami smiled weakly. She often felt that running around Tokyo battling monsters in a mini-skirt and knee high boots was quite wild enough for one person.

* * *

"Eee! I'm so jealous!" Usagi wailed.

"Well, it's really your own fault," Luna muttered. Usagi had been complaining about missing out on the cultural exchange trip for the past three weeks. "You should've studied harder for that math test."

"Oh, don't be too upset, Usagi," Minako said, patting her shoulder. "We'll bring you back lots of presents."

"Well…" Usagi sniffed, brightening somewhat.

"Don't worry, Usagi!" Rei said, hiding her own disappointment. "We'll have a good time right here. She thought for a moment, wondering just how she was going to make good on that promise. Then something came to her. "Yes!" she held up a finger in determination. "We'll—we'll…go to the new shopping mall and take advantage of all the opening day freebies they'll be handing out!"

"Oh yeah! I hear they have a chocolate shop with treats imported from around the world." Usagi's mouth watered at the thought. And they were going to be giving out so many free samples…

Makoto smiled a bit. Then, she chanced to look down at her watch and her face froze. "Ah! Guys, I think we have to run. The plane will be leaving soon!"

As if on cue, a voice from the loudspeaker announced: "Last call—Section C of flight 1027 to London, England boarding now."

"We're going to miss you!" Rei said.

"Oh no! Where's the rest of the group?!" Ami scanned the airport, panicked.

"Calm down, Ami," Minako said. "I'm sure they've just boarded already. We'd better get to our gate. Bye, guys!" The girls hugged and Rei and Usagi waved to their friends' backs as they scrambled for their gate.

"Okay, Mina, you're our resident travel expert. Where are our seats?" Makoto asked. Minako glanced down at the tickets.

"Hmm… seats KA, KB, and KC. Gate 21. Hey, we're all together!"

"I call window seat!" Makoto announced.

"Okay, okay, let's hurry. Gate 21 is all the way at the end of the airport."

The girls rushed across the polished floor as fast as they dared. Only a handful of people milled around the edges of the airport, most of them waiting in the seats near their gates, reading newspapers. No one so much as looked up at the three girls. Soon enough, they reached the gate. They shimmied into a line at the boarding ramp just behind an older man with a large dog.

"Are you sure we're in the right place, Mina?" Ami asked, clutching at the strap of her purse.

"Don't worry so much, Ami! See, there's Kenichi, boarding ahead of us." Minako pointed to a boy in a bright red cap a few people in front of them. "I recognize his hat."

"Oh, okay then." Ami checked her purse for her wallet one last time. Somehow, she couldn't help but feel as though everything was about to go horribly wrong. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that things went horribly wrong in a monster-related way on an almost daily basis.

Still, she thought firmly, there would be _no daimons_ on this flight. None at all. The senshi (well, three of them, at least,) were on vacation. A nice, relaxing, much-_deserved_ vacation. Finally.

For some reason, though, she kept wondering if maybe she should've stayed behind to help Usagi and Rei… _Oh no you don't, Ami. _She shook herself. It was better that she stopped that kind of idea right in its tracks. _They'll be fine._ _I'm just nervous about flying_, she thought. She had been on an airplane before, but something about hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour in a giant metal tube always made her stomach do unpleasant acrobatics.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you can't bring that dog on the plane unsecured…" the attendant at the door argued with the man in front of them.

"Come on, come on…" muttered Minako, hopping in place. "We've got to get this show on the road!"

"Really, Mina, I don't think we have to—" Ami started.

"Come on!" Minako grabbed Makoto and Ami by the wrists. She barreled through the doors onto the boarding ramp. Makoto shrugged and followed along, while Ami took a glance back at the preoccupied attendant.

As they entered the plane, they passed a woman with brown hair organizing a group of teenagers.

"Hi, Ms Haruna!" Minako sang out. "We're here! Our seats are back there somewhere, though." She pointed towards their seats, an empty row not far from the bathroom. "See you when we land!" Without waiting for Ms. Haruna to respond, Minako practically skipped toward the back of the plane.

"I don't know if that was a good idea," Ami said, once they had found their seats. "Don't they have to check our tickets?" She looked around. The plane was fairly empty, except for a few elderly couples and the group of teenagers, including Kenichi, who sat several rows in front of them.

"No, I think they can check them in our seats, like on a train," Minako said airily. "Besides, they know we're with the school group. Ms. Haruna can vouch for us." She settled into the seat, clearly unconcerned.

"Mina, I'm not quite sure it works that way…" Ami trailed off.

"Don't worry so much, Ami," Minako said, cracking open a magazine. The cover showed a full body picture of that male model/actor/singer/songwriter Gustav Valcignione. "We're on vacation!"

"Yeah," said Makoto, "we should just try to get the most out of this. Hey, is that who I think it is?" Makoto pointed to the magazine.

"Yep," Minako sighed dreamily.

Ami had never seen the appeal; Gustav was pretty, but judging from the magazine interview, wherein he answered that his favorite color was 'seven', there was not much going on upstairs.

A short beep sounded as the loudspeaker cut in. "Good morning, everyone," the pilot began, his voice a deep rumble. "Welcome to the six am flight from Tokyo, Japan to—"

"Oh my god, Gustav Valcignione and I have the same blood type!" Minako exclaimed.

"No way!" Makoto leaned over for a closer look.

"You know, if he was ever in a horrible accident, say, thrown from his manly (and oh so sexy!) black motorcycle while rescuing an orphaned child's puppy from a burning hospital, and I was there, say because I'd been discovered by a modeling agent and was on my way to superstardom, then the doctors could totally give him my blood in a transfusion. Hee hee, my blood and Gustav Valcignione's mingling together in his veins like lovesick dolphins or something! And once he learned that I'd saved his life, he'd—"

"I don't mean to interrupt, but shouldn't we be paying attention to the safety instructions?" Ami asked, anxiously. She leaned out into the aisle a bit to get a better look at the stewardess, who was demonstrating proper seatbelt technique.

"Safety instructions?" said Minako. "Nothing's gonna go wrong. And even if it did, I know just what to do."

"You do?" Makoto asked, suspiciously.

"Yep! If the plane starts to crash, we just put on our seatbelts, adjust our oxygen masks, announce our undying love for Gustav Valcignione, and prepare to die. Oh, and remember that our seat cushions can be used as flotation devices in the event of an emergency that doesn't kill us as we hit the water."

"Uh, that doesn't sound like such a good plan, Mina," Makoto grimaced.

"Sure it is! If we spend our last thoughts thinking about Gustav Valcignione, at least we'll die happy."

"Well, how about we skip the dying part and just think about Gustav Valcignione?"

"I like the way you think, Makoto." Minako leaned back in her seat with her hands behind her head.

Ami laughed, buckling her seatbelt as she felt the plane rolling down the runway, lifting into the air. So what if she could barely hear the announcements over the sound of her friends' hyena-like giggles? She knew she was lucky to be able to enjoy such an educational trip with them. She opened up her book and tried to relax. It was going to be a rather long flight.

She hoped they wouldn't get too bored.

But predictably, a few hours into the flight, Minako began squirming in her seat. "Ugh, guys, how much longer is it going to be? I feel like we've been cooped up in this plane forever."

"It shouldn't be more than another few hours," said Ami, without looking up from her book. "If you like, we can ask the stewardess if we're going to land any time soon."

"Yeah," said Makoto, "I brought a special flavor of gum just for the landing. You know, to stop my ears from popping? I was saving it 'til the end of the flight, but I just can't resist a little taste…."

"Ooh, what flavor is it?" Minako asked.

"Blue cotton candy," Makoto said, unwrapping it. "Want a piece?"

Ami flagged down the stewardess. "Excuse me, Miss," she said, "Do you know how much longer it's going to be until we land?"

"Hmm…" The stewardess's nose wrinkled. "I'd say about thirty minutes or so." Ami thanked her and she walked back down the aisle.

"Oh my," said Ami, "that seems very quick, doesn't it?"

"Quick?" said Minako. "You can't be serious. I feel like it's been about a thousand years!"

"And my legs are cramping," sighed Makoto. "There's just not enough room."

"Do you want to switch with me?" Ami said, "You could stretch your legs into the aisle."

"No thanks," Makoto said. "We'll be on the ground in a little while anyway."

Suddenly, the pilot's voice cut in over the loudspeaker. "Good afternoon, everyone! We made some great time this trip, so we're going to be arriving a bit early."

"Well, that explains it," said Ami. "We must've made some very good time indeed." It was supposed to be about eleven hours and forty-five minutes from Tokyo to London. According to Makoto's watch, it had only been around eight and a half hours.

"It sure looks pretty down there," said Makoto. "I thought London was supposed to be…I don't know… rainier? Though I do see some smog…."

"Well, it doesn't rain all the time," Minako said. "We probably got a nice day."

"Hmm…" said Ami, getting an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had checked the weather report in London online, and it was supposed to be drizzling and a bit overcast. _Maybe it just looks different from so high up_, she thought, willing herself not to think about how they had walked past the attendant at the gate.

"Please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray tables up and your seats back in the full upright position, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to land in sunny San Francisco, where the temperature is currently eighty-two degrees!"

"San Francisco?" squeaked Ami.

"They're kidding, right? Please tell me they're kidding!" Minako shot up onto her feet.

"Miss, please sit down for the landing," the stewardess chided.

Makoto choked on her gum.


End file.
